Progress of archaeological tourism research abroad and implications

Abstract

[Objective] A comprehensive and in-depth study of archaeological tourism—as an emerging form of tourism—can facilitate its sustainable development. [Methods] In this study, using the Web of Science Core Collection as the data source and the CiteSpace software for visual analysis, we developed knowledge maps of foreign archaeological tourism research. [Results] The following results were derived: (1) There was an overall rapid increasing trend in foreign archaeological tourism research publications from 1993 to 2022; (2) Foreign research institutions were dominated by Jordanian and Spanish universities, and there was a lack of cross-regional institutional cooperation groups; (3) In terms of research content, most foreign archaeological tourism studies focused on destination development, tourist behavior, and destination management and protection, as well as case studies of particular archaeological sites; (4) Most of the foreign research focused on traditional propositions related to tourist experience and destination management and protection. In the future, climate change, tourism site protection, and sustainable tourism development will be the key topics of research. [Conclusion] By analyzing the current status of foreign archaeological tourism research, this article argues that future Chinese archaeological tourism research should focus on developing new research horizons, expanding research contents, innovating research methods, and strengthening cooperation and communication. With an in-depth examination of the evolutionary trend and frontier focus of foreign archaeological tourism research, this study is of great importance for improving the level of archaeological tourism research in China and promoting the high-quality development of archaeological tourism.

Keywords

• |archaeological tourism|knowledge map|citespace|visualization analysis|bibliometric analysis